I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to beverage carriers, and more specifically to beverage carriers comprising detachable insulating sleeves and the method of making said beverage carriers.
II. Description of Related Art
Beverage carriers are used, generally, to hold and transport one or more beverage containers. Commonly, beverage carriers are used to hold six individual glass bottles (i.e., a six-pack) so that they can be stored and transported easily. These six-pack carriers are typically made from a single, continuous piece of cardboard or paperboard and are assembled using automated systems capable of cutting, folding, and gluing the beverage carriers. Automated systems typically utilize generally flat cardboard or paperboard templates and fold the flat templates to form a three-dimensional beverage carrier. Commonly used beverage carriers often have six individual slots for holding a beverage container such as a glass bottle. When a user desires to open and drink the beverages contained within the carrier, the user generally lifts each of the beverages out of its respective slot in the carrier. The user subsequently discards the carrier once all individual beverages are removed.
While drinking a beverage, the user may desire to keep his or her beverage insulated from external heat sources, such as heat from the environment or heat from the user's hand, during consumption by inserting the beverage into an insulating device (for example, a Koozie®, huggie, can coolers, etc.). However, the user may often find himself or herself without a can cooler and thus unable to easily insulate his or her beverage.
Accordingly, a need exists in the art for a beverage carrier comprising six or more insulating sleeves that can each be individually detached from the carrier while retaining its structure such that the sleeve can surround a beverage container as a user is drinking the beverage, thereby insulating the beverage from external heat sources such as heat from the environment or heat from the user's hand during consumption. However, production of such a beverage carrier having individually detachable sleeves may cause problems for automated manufacturing systems. Because the beverage carrier must comprise individual sleeves that can be detached while retaining their structure and not just slots for holding beverage containers, the template used to make the beverage carrier must also comprise material for forming each individual sleeve. However, because automated systems will cut each template from a larger piece of cardboard or paperboard, the material used to form each individual sleeve also cannot overlap. Particularly with respect to carriers holding six or more beverages, as is common in the industry, this creates a problem because known templates having standard, commonly used shapes cannot be used to make a six-pack carrier having individually detachable sleeves.
Accordingly, a need exists in the art for a beverage carrier template made from a single, continuous piece of material configured for manufacturing a beverage carrier having six or more individually detachable sleeves that each retains its structure after detachment. Furthermore, a need exists in the art for a method of manufacturing a beverage carrier using such a template.